The Last Ring Pop

What a few teenage girls did with 10 hours and $62 in Portland.

We
couldn’t get the car away from our siblings, and we had trouble parallel
parking. But now we’ve gathered in Northwest Portland, on the steps of
Tea Chai Té, for our mission.

We are going to spend
the next 10 hours looking for things to do in Portland before you’re
21. This is a city that seems to run on young people—but not too young.
The city’s culture seems slanted to those who are of age, who can flash
their IDs and get into clubs and bars without worry.

We’re not kids—not girls—but in the eyes of the law, we’re not yet grown up. We’re looking for the fun we can find in between.

We start with $80 between us and absolutely no plan.

“Can we go to Manor?” one of us asks.

“No. Food first.”

1:30 pm

We decide on Cartopia at Southeast 12th Avenue and
Hawthorne Boulevard. We think we’ll get around better without a car, so
we get on the Streetcar at Northwest Lovejoy Street and 22nd Avenue and
it starts to crawl west. Two of us nurse Ring Pops, watermelon and
cherry.

“Do you have any more?” one of us without candy asks.

“No, sorry, I only had two in my bag.”

“Whatever, I didn’t want one anyway.”

The Streetcar takes
14 minutes to get to the No. 15 bus line. At Southwest 10th Avenue and
Salmon Street, a large woman with smeared eyeliner walks up to us. “Can I
use your phone, dear?” she says. “I’ll pay you $5.” She follows us on
the bus and we hand her a phone, declining her money. She calls Comcast
to set up an appointment, and then looks at our Ring Pops. “Are you
aware,” she says, “that those look like things for babies?”

2:34 pm

We arrive at Cartopia and want pizza. “How much is it?” one of us asks. “I refuse to spend more than $4.”

We order one pepperoni, one margherita.

“Pizza really good,” one of us says.

“Wow, nice grammar.”

“My dad is such a grammar Nazi. He corrects me on stupid shit.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, I also want to get my nose pierced, but when I told my dad he was like meeeyyyhhh.”

“You should go for the Guinness world record for most piercings.”

After pizza we’re stuffed—but then order three milkshakes from Perierra: a strawberry, a Nutella, and a banana-Nutella.

We decide to share,
but one of us sucks down the banana-Nutella all by herself. “Storm Large
is a goddess,” she says. “I want to friend her on Facebook so badly.”

3:45 pm

One of us hears there’s a Fabergé egg at the Perfume House
on Hawthorne. We take the No. 14 and at the shop see a blue velvet box
that says “Fabergé.” We want to see the egg, but the shop owner
distracts us.

“Do you girls all share the same name?” he says.

We tell him no, a
little creeped out. He tells us he’s about to give us a sample of the
latest scent from Oman and one of the greatest perfume houses in the
world. He drenches four cotton balls in the perfume called “Honor.”

“Put these in your bras,” he says.

We think he’s joking. “No, really. It will drive the boys crazy.”

This we do after we
leave the store. We walk to Imelda’s with damp bras that now smell like
the cosmetic counter at Nordstrom. In the shoe store we see a pair of
Børns—red, soft leather, cushioned flats. $95. We want them but now have
only $49 for food and caffeine.

We brokenheartedly
move to House of Vintage, where a black baby doll with blond hair guards
the front door in an orange chair. We wonder if it’s offensive.

We think about riding
the OHSU tram, but we’re too lazy to make such a long trip. One of us
says we should go to the Grotto; her mom says it’s cool.

Not a single boy has gone crazy from the scent of Honor.

5:43 pm

We’re on the No. 15 and 72 buses for 40 minutes when we
realize (a) we’re not entirely sure where the Grotto is, (b) we miss our
stop, and (c) the tram would have been closer and way more fun.

It rains on us as we
walk back to the Grotto. The religious shrine is surrounded by trees; we
hear what sounds like monks chanting. In a cave, a white Pieta perches
15 feet off the ground. Two green racks with hundreds of lit pillar
candles surround the altar. No one is else is here; it feels like a bad
horror movie.

We leave and get
drenched and just want to go home and put on flannel pajamas. We also
want a Slurpee. We catch the No. 19 and suddenly realize there’s a
7-Eleven right there. The bus driver gripes at us when we jump off after
half a block.

We pass the aisle
with Hostess snacks and buy a Cherry Coke Slurpee and a small bottle of
Coca-Cola, which we share. Back on the No. 20, rain drips on us through
the open emergency exit in the roof.

6:27 pm

We arrive back at Northwest 23rd Avenue and wish our house
will look like this Pottery Barn someday—but since we don’t have our
own homes, we think Williams-Sonoma might be more fun.

We’re right. Star
Wars cookie cutters and a metal firestarter torch amuse us before we go
upstairs to sit on the chairs and flop down on the huge display bed.

We move on to Sloan
and admire a Kelly green sundress with a cutout back. We sift through
coral maxis, polka dots and fitted floral crop tops—until a clerk with a
child’s voice says, “We’re going to be closing in a few minutes, gals,
so try on anything you want to now!”

We only have $45.70 total. She herds us to the door like preschoolers.

“Wow, I hate when people say ‘gals,’” one of us says. “It’s super-annoying.”

All the shops are
closing, and our shoes are soaked. We trudge down the street to Vivace,
where we order tea, coffee and breakfast crepes, though we still feel
full from the milkshakes.

We gossip until our conversation becomes ridiculous.

“I don’t understand why she dresses like a hobo.”

“God, my science teacher last semester was such a beezy.”

“What would happen if everyone donated Fifty Shades of Grey to the school library? Actually, though, what would they do with like 300 copies?”

We stay until Vivace
closes. We think about Stepping Stone, but we can’t eat any more. We
return to our cars, but we can’t end the night in such a lame way.

“I have sparklers,” one of us says.

We get in our cars and drive to one of our homes on a cul-de-sac outside the city.

We stuff our faces
with Sour Patch Kids, light the sparklers and run in circles in the
cul-de-sac, red sparks and smoke trailing behind us, just like we did
when we were 5 years old.

“Woooooooo!” we scream past the houses, from which no adult emerges to stop us.